All this for what, a bleeding medal? (RD Wingfield's Frost novels)
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Detective Inspector Jack Frost, reeling from nearly being kicked out of Denton CID by his scheming boss Mullett and DCI Skinner, goes home to reflect on his life. What he thinks makes him bitter.


I don't own the funny and gritty novels that inspired 'A Touch of Frost' series starring David Jason as DI Jack Frost. I'm not sure which one I prefer, but I enjoy the books since they're funny and they show a copper who's constantly brought down.

Anyway, please tell me what you think?

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All this for what, a bleeding medal?

DI Jack Frost walked tiredly into his cold house, exhausted and unable to feel any triumph of being able to hold onto the job that had been his life for years after nearly being thrown out or transferred due to his own stupidity, and had felt more like home to him than this dump. He had managed to make Hornrim Harry keep him on, though the bastard's attempt to get him either sacked or transferred to an even shittier Division with the help of that bastard Skinner had failed because Skinner was dead.

Jack closed the door and shivered. It was cold inside the house, and he didn't have anyone here to cuddle up too anymore since Mary's death. Sighing, Jack shrugged off his grotty and dirty mac and just dumped it on the floor carelessly before he kicked off his battered shoes, and he clambered upstairs.

Most of his house was still showing signs of an impending move, but since he was staying on in Denton he would have to find time to get around to unpacking though at this point he was too physically tired to care.

He just wanted to get to bed, but before he made it up the stairs, he took the phone off the hook; despite his triumph of managing to keep his job as a Detective Inspector for Denton CID, he was tired of the police, tired of Mullett and his never-ending attempts to get him kicked out of the force or just out of Denton, and he was exhausted. Jack just wanted to sleep, and it was freezing outside and inside his dump of a house.

Stumbling into the bathroom, taking off his grubby shirt and trousers, shivering in the cold, Frost washed his face and brushed his teeth. His mouth tasted like a sewage treatment works after having so many cigarettes shoved into his gob all day, and he brushed his teeth several times to make his mouth taste fresher.

As he brushed and scrubbed, Frost wondered what Mullett would try next. The hornrimmed bastard with the stupid tache wouldn't give up, but frankly, Frost didn't care. He had begun thinking this way ever since he had nearly lost it all when that bastard Weaver died, but he had bounced back. But, as his aged, tired mind pointed out as soon as the memory of Weaver, who had protested point-blank about his innocence in the death and kidnap of that kid - what was her name again? - crying like mad when he pressured him into talking, and later hung himself in his cell, he had realised what Drysdale had performed one of his autopsies that he was out of his depth.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't cut out being a copper anymore. Maybe it was time to pack it all in.

After rinsing his mouth out with water, Frost's mouth felt fresher than it had for a while, and he looked at himself in the mirror, grimacing at the picture with a drawn-out sigh.

His face and thinning hair looked like he felt, and he looked the picture of an aged man playing a young man's game. Frost rarely looked at himself in the mirror, not out of vanity; despite Mary and Mullett's best efforts to make him look and act presentable, Frost had neither found the time nor the inclination to appear presentable. What was the point? He worked extremely long hours, eating nothing but fatty foods and drinking lukewarm tea to keep himself going with little sleep. When would he have the time to clean himself up?

Frost wasn't stupid - there were moments he thought about going home and having a long, hot bath while he was technically meant to still be at work - but why did Mullett not use his brain? He knew Frost was nearly always at work and lurching from one crisis to the next, chasing up leads that would either fizzle out because Frost had the inability to actually wait until he had the proof needed to arrest someone. It was a bad habit, but Frost was always rushed off his feet. But right now he didn't care. He just wanted to relax for a bit before going back to the station.

Frost knew his weaknesses only too well, and he knew it would be virtually impossible for him to get over them. Mullett could scold him all he liked and blame him whenever something went wrong, which frequently happened, but he couldn't change the facts that he was overworked, old, ugly and tired. But the real reason Frost didn't like seeing himself in the mirror was that he didn't want to see himself as an old man. In many ways each time he did catch sight of himself in the mirror, he was reminded of his old boss. Frost closed his eyes in remembrance for Bert Williams. Like himself, Bert had found it hard to adjust to life in an increasingly 'modern' police force, and he was going to retire as a result before he'd died.

Sometimes Jack wished he had retired long before now, but with Mary's death, he had nothing to retire for.

Modern police force? He snorted to himself as he remembered that time. Everything was turning to bloody computers, and fools like Mullett were beginning to appear like toxic mushrooms in an otherwise healthy forest, babbling all the time about modern policing while they didn't have a bloody clue what that meant, and going off all the time whenever overtime exceeded more than it should. Why the hell should it matter if it cost more money when a little kid's life was at risk? Sometimes Frost thought the police cared more for money than it did helping people and putting criminals away.

Frost sighed again and turned off the bathroom light, and walked out of the room and entered his bedroom. The place felt emptier than ever; while he had come to loathe Mary despite loving her in his own way, though she had driven him mad because she had hoped he would rise higher in the force despite his indifference, he found himself missing her more often.

The marriage had been one of the biggest mistakes of his life, Frost reflected as he crawled into bed, shivering slightly as the cold air seemed to have seeped under the messy covers. He blew out a breath as he looked up at the ceiling, but his mind would not let him rest. His mind and brain were conditioned from long years of not getting enough rest for him to sleep now.

For the first time in a long time, Frost wondered how long he could last in the police. He had come very close to being transferred to another Division, all because of his inability to keep up with the paperwork, and with his bloody expenses. He had been forging receipts for as long as he could remember. It was practically second nature, but he had become complacent and Skinner had managed to find out about it quickly and he had taken the proof to Mullett.

Oh, paperwork, he groaned. The bane of my bloody existence. Every month of the year, there were new timesheet's and other bits and pieces to send off to bloody County, and every day Mullett would come down his bloody neck about it, making demands while he was struggling to cope with the number of cases that piled on his shoulders.

Frost had never liked paperwork, but then again he had never been able to find the time to adequately tackle it, either because of his own indifference to it and his desire to escape it, or something had come around the corner to take him away from it all. Frost closed his eyes and rolled over so he could try to get some sleep, wondering all the while if he was cut out for his job as a Detective Inspector. He had asked himself the same thing numerous times over the years since Mary kept trying to push him into becoming a DI.

Jack Frost had never wanted to become a Detective Inspector in the first place. He had risen to Detective Sergeant and had been content with that because he genuinely didn't see himself getting higher, and he had seen the stress poor Bert had been placed under. All that paperwork, having to answer for anything that went wrong…. Frost hadn't wanted that, he hated paperwork and his lack of ambition had pissed Mary off, and their marriage became more strained and her hatred for him grew. The saddest thing was Frost could see the cogs turning in her head, and she was beginning to see that perhaps her bitch of a mother Beryl was probably right about him. Frost hadn't seen or heard from his bastard former in-laws ever since they had pulled a legal loophole out of their hat and took the house from him. He had only just managed to hold on.

Mary had wanted to have kids, but they couldn't have them, either because of him or something was wrong with her, they had never found out the truth. She had become house-proud, a bit too house-proud for his liking since he liked a bit of clutter. When they discovered that Mary had cancer it was at a point in his life where he had begun dreading going home, so he remained working at the station just to avoid her; it was cowardly of him, but he had become sick of the sight of her.

That was one of the reasons he had hooked up with Sue Clarke, a DC who eventually left after their relationship broke down. Love didn't exist in Frost's mind.

When he found out about her cancer, so many things had changed for him and the news that Mary would inevitably die quicker than he would, he had decided he had had enough.

Ever since Mullett had replaced their old Divisional Commander things had changed- a great man, that; Mullett's predecessor was much like Frost, a man who realised he couldn't rise any higher than he had already, and came to the realisation it didn't make a difference if he did go up any higher. With that in mind, he had gradually grown bored when his applications for promotion were turned down when he did become interested in leaving piss poor rundown Denton, god knows why, and he eventually just stopped because it was a waste of time and he came to the realisation going higher was just not worth it.

With Mullett's arrival came aggro from nearly every corner. Frost had developed a very strong dislike for the bastard over the years, and the contempt was mutual. Bert's death had only made the whole thing three times worse than it needed to be, though truthfully Jack had not really given too much thought at all about what the future had in store for him when Bert did leave the force, but with his death and having Bert's duties thrust upon him and the stress of Mary's illness weighing him down…..

He had planned on leaving her before the illness became known, but when he found out about it he found that his problems had just gotten worse.

Mary's pleading for him to be there for her, all hatred and resentment gone, to help her through the days of misery. It was too much. He didn't particularly want to be there for the woman. It was petty, but there was nothing left between them and only a blind fool would think otherwise.

On top of that, her family's disgust for him became worse. Jack had gotten drunk in order to cope with the mess, and then the call came in.

Some little bastard with a gun.

Everyone said he was dangerous, but he had not cared. In fact, he had barely registered what everyone else was saying. He didn't care if the little bastard killed him. He had just wanted it all to end, and Frost had a whole list of things he just wanted to see ended. He wanted to get away from the responsibility of looking after Mary and putting up with her after years of aggro because she simply couldn't get it into her skull he'd achieved all he had set out to achieve, and didn't want to go any higher.

He had wanted to get away from Mullett and his stupid existence, and all the overtime demands, expenses and everything else, but most of all he had become so…..tired of life, so jaded.

He had gotten shot in the face and for that "act of heroism and bravery," he had received his George's cross.

Mary had been delighted with the news of the medal, but it was when they had made him into Detective Inspector she had nearly burst with pride, though her saying to him "at last you've done something right" had put him right off.

So, to get something done right, he just needed to be shot, did he?

Stupid cow.

The good news was she had stopped nagging. Mary hadn't been the only one - the Chief Constable, who had always taken a shine to him, though god alone knew why since the man didn't really even know him and his awful habits, and Mullett, who had hoped to use the medal to his own advantage before it blew up in his face and made the idiot look even more like a fool than he was already.

In truth, Frost hadn't wanted the bloody thing, but it had its uses; it was the only reason he was still at Denton because if Mullett had had his way then Frost would have been kicked out ages ago.

But it didn't stop the sly bastard from trying.

Frost had lost count of the number of times Mullett had been ready to rake him over the coals, making those stupid excuses like "this time I won't protect you," and Frost was always thinking "when have you ever cared, you stupid bastard?" Mullet had always wanted him gone, and simpered around those who could do it, while not looking Frost in the eyes. He was too much of a coward to do that.

That mess with that kid rapist Charlie Weaver had been one of those times. Mullett had recommended some bastard from County come to take over his cases, and he hadn't had the guts to come out an say it. Frost closed his eyes and shivered as he remembered the sight of Weaver hanging from the ceiling in that cell, he had hung himself and he had left a note saying that Frost had framed him for the rape of Vicky Brewer. He was also a pervert and apparently he'd had a stash of kiddy porn his bitch of an aunt had found and bunt, 'to protect the family name.'

Frost had come dangerously close to losing it all, but he had held on. But at the time he had thought of leaving the police, but as he had told Liz Maud, who'd been kidnapped on an undercover operation to find the bastard (or bitches, as it turned out) who had been killing prostitutes and mutilating them thanks to his own incompetence and his inability to remember things, and bloody Taffy Morgan's lack of common sense, though Frost had a nerve thinking he himself had reserves full of it, the only reason he was still on was that he knew Mullett would be overjoyed if he left.

Sometimes, when he was truly depressed, Frost would ask himself why he put up with all of it; the endless hours, the number of cases dropped onto his shoulders, the expenses that never got filled in because he always found some way to wriggle out of it, and he always came out with the same answers.

Firstly, he had wanted to stick it up to figures like Mullett and Allen. Frost always shrugged his shoulders whenever they had gone off on him, but he had always bounced back because of his luck.

Secondly, he had no-where and nothing else to go or do. The police was his life. He felt more at home in the nick than he did anywhere else, and if he left then what would he have to do with his life? Nothing. But that didn't stop Mullett from trying to kick him out of the police and replace him with a 'modern copper,' someone like Jim Caasidy, perhaps.

Frost grimaced as he remembered DC, now DI, Cassidy. Career mad, opportunist…. he reminded Frost, though he'd never admit it aloud, of the swots at school, though Cassidy liked taking the work other coppers spent a lot of time working on and presenting them to Mullett as his own. When his 'beloved' daughter died, though an unkind part of Frost had wondered if it was worth it, Frost had covered up the facts that she was not just hooked on hard drugs, but she was a prostitute as well. It would have served Cassidy right to see what his precious ambition and his inability to see there was more to life than the job (Frost thought himself a hypocrite when he thought that, but in his defence, he had nothing to look forward to when he left). But he hadn't. He had covered it up, and Cassdy's grief and anger that his daughter's case hadn't been properly handled had made him so aggressive and angry that even Mullett had wanted him gone.

But he had held onto his job.

But now…..

Why should he stay?

Mullett had wanted to use DCI Skinner to get him kicked out of the police, seeing him as nothing more than a hindrance to the police though why they thought they were any better was beyond his comprehension. Mullett was a stingy bastard, and a coward who didn't have the guts to tell people the point, and he was a fool. The Chief Constable didn't give a shit what Mullett thought or what he even wanted. But Mullett was too stupid to see that he was wasting his time.

But the idiot had his uses (the Chief Constable, not Mullett), and he had forced Mullett into giving him cases even when they were not wanted, but Mullett used them as a means to get dirt on him so then he, Detective Inspector Jack Frost could be kicked out of the force. But while he had managed to keep his job, once more giving a metaphorical two-fingered salute to the horn-rimmed bastard that was his Divisional Commander, Frost was a realist. He knew that one way or another he would have to leave the police, or after this little mess it was just as likely that his medal wouldn't stop the next bastard Mullett tried to bring in to get him kicked out but it just was not in his nature to let the bastards bring him down.

Frost rolled over and yawned. He just wanted to sleep and he cursed his mind and his brain for managing without sleep for long periods of time when he should be getting some sleep, and once more he wondered what he would do with himself if he did retire, and once more his thoughts turned back to that bloody medal.

What good had it brought him? Nothing. Oh, because of the medal he had managed to survive longer in the police than he would without it. But he always kept the bloody thing buried under a ton of rubbish in his tip of an office. He didn't like looking at it, or even thinking about what it represented.

To Frost, the medal was a sham. He had not got it for the right reasons, and he had never pretended otherwise. The only person he had ever been truthful about the damn thing was Clive Barnard. He had wanted to essentially die, but he had instead been imprisoned in life.

"All this for what," Frost said bitterly as he reflected on the near misses and how tired he felt, "a bleeding medal?"

With that, he finally went to sleep.

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Hope you enjoyed it.


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